An interesting article, ‘Employees are so sick of the five-day workweek that most would take a pay cut to make a four-day week happen‘, by Ryan Hogg, states: “In the battle for a four-day workweek employees seem ready to put their money where their mouth is—they’ll take a pay cut if it means having an extra day of free time.”

At a time when inflation and cost of living is extremely high, people would rather sacrifice money for time. This isn’t about a lack of ambition or drive, it’s about wanting balance. It’s about prioritizing wellbeing over profit.

The article continued: “Last year, the U.K. piloted the world’s biggest-ever four-day week trial, made up of more than 60 companies and nearly 3,000 employees. Most businesses maintained or improved their productivity, while the trial also revealed that quit rates among staff plummeted.

Of the businesses involved in the survey, the majority chose to continue with the scheme.“

It can work.

I read another article, which I can’t find to source right now, and it was mentioning how many big companies are struggling with high absenteeism, with employees taking more sick time than they ever have before. Employees are taking days off in far greater quantities than my generation and our parent’s generation ever did, and these absences are costing companies far more than expected. Apparently this isn’t just an issue if people being sicker, but rather employees taking more time for ‘mental health days’. Essentially just taking a break from the grind of a 5- day work week. A shorter week could work to reduce this.

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I think the 4-day week could work for schools too. Add one hour to each of the 4 remaining school days and you’ve got 2/3’s of the missing school day covered. Add 30 more daily minutes of collaborative/prep time and teachers would be working the same hours, and embedding some needed prep time to their schedules. Same hours of work, close to the same number of hours of class, and so not even a reason to reduce pay.

Doing this, students and teachers would have 4-day weeks and 3-day weekends. I wonder what that would do to student absenteeism? I wonder how well students would perform? This year our senior PE classes start an hour early, and we haven’t noticed an issue with students struggling through a longer school day.

It could be piloted in a high school, but probably not the younger grades because it would be challenging to arrange for child care/supervision on the weekday that students don’t have school. I’d be happy to volunteer my school to try it out… I wonder what teachers, students, and parents would think of this?